Word Origin & History

assertive 1560s, "declaratory, positive, full of assertion," from assert + -ive. Meaning "insisting on one's rights" is short for self-assertive (1865). Assertiveness "tendency toward self-assertion" is from 1881.

Example Sentences for assertive

Night was assertive in its heaviness, but communicative of its mysteries in its wild scents—the silent music of its hour.

This assertive Briton has no desire to lose identity in "Brahm."

There was in them something else, or more, than the assertive grossness of life.

He was a slender fellow with close-clipped, assertive red hair.

He represents the assertive, Jacksonian period of our national existence.

Youth should be modest, and he was assertive from his childhood.

The colour was flushed again into his face, and he carried his body with the old independent, assertive air.

Mr. Crewe, who was anything but a fool, and just as assertive as Mr. Flint, cut in.

"I must know," insisted Cobb, fidgeting in his chair, with a fine interrogative smile of assertive power.